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Monthly Archives: February 2014

Welcome to the 49th edition of Tuesdays With Mitch, where we’re I’m out of town typing this in a hotel lobby after several adult drinks. It takes a serious amount of dedication to be your favorite blogger. The Olympics are over and it’s officially basketball season for the next few weeks. Get to readin’…

North Carolina rushes the court after beating Duke, although their fans would tell you beating Duke is expected and nothing to celebrate. (via Grant Halverson / Getty Images)

The rules for college student sections rushing the court used to be fairly understood, if not hotly contested. This became a topic of conversation yet again after North Carolina rushed the court after beating their archrival #5, Duke Thursday night. I was surprised. But I shouldn’t have been. The rules have changed. Let’s start by looking at the old rules. In my book, the court-rushing rules were as follows.

Rushing the court is allowed if:

You are a school with not much of a basketball history and you beat a top-5 team. Top-10 doesn’t count. Ideally, this would only take place if you have postseason aspirations.

You have a pretty darn good, but not necessarily great program (think along the lines of Memphis, Wisconsin, Marquette, etc.) and you beat the #1 team in the country. This is assuming the win “means something” in your season. If you’re usually pretty good, but you’re 5-21 this season, I don’t care if you beat the top-ranked team.

You are a school that was considered to be “on the bubble” needing this game to make you a lock for the tournament. If your student body is educated enough to know what was at stake and you essentially clinched an invite to go dancing, you can get down on the hardwood.

You are a decent team that generally does not win conference championships, but just clinched a conference championship. In this instance a school like Colorado State is allowed to rush the court after beating a crappy San Jose State team if that win clinched the Mountain West. Or a school like Colorado is allowed to rush if they were to beat a crappy team like USC while clinching the Pac-12.

You are team like Wichita State and you just finished the regular season undefeated.

That’s pretty much it.

The following should never happen:

You rush the court when you consider yourself to be a blue-blood program that insists the beauty of basketball flows through only your gym and always has. This means the following schools are never, ever allowed to rush the court: North Carolina, Duke, Syracuse, UCLA, Kansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisville. (Maybe a few others.)

When these schools rush the court they simply diminish their dominance and pull themselves back to the pack, associating with lesser programs that should only rush the court when beating them. At least that’s what I used to think. Now, the days of schools giving a damn about such things have yielded to a pack of young students who are just trying to have fun.

And I suppose that’s okay.

Anyway, the court-rushing rules as we knew them are long gone. The new court-rushing rules are as follows:

Anybody can rush the court whenever they want, because who the hell cares? These kids are in college and couldn’t tell you a thing about the history of their program. They’re drunk. They want to get on TV and rushing the court makes that a near-certainty.

So as much as it saddens me, the days of exclusive court rushings (this goes for field-rushing in football too) are over. It no longer matters, but I will always subscribe to the brief rules I laid out above. At this point though I’ve given up defending the honor of the court. These damn kids (How old do I sound here?) are going to do whatever they want because they don’t care. They want to have fun and get on TV.

And I suppose that’s okay.

(I could discuss the ins and outs of this topic for an extended period of time, but again, I am not in the ideal situation for blogging and need some sleep. I apologize.)

I would also like to quickly discuss the state of CU Basketball. If you’re not careful, the Denver media would have you think that the Buffaloes are an up and coming super power of basketball. A national contender. A powerhouse.

Colorado has a pretty good basketball program. Tad Boyle is a good coach, but let’s not label this guy the best coach in the nation. Let’s not label this team as a perennial PAC-12 contender.

The first thing we need to address is the injury to CU’s best player, Spencer Dinwiddie. The “big brother” guard tore his ACL in a loss to Washington that completely changed the course of the Buffs’ season. It was unfortunate for everyone. The Buffs were in the top-20 at the time. Now, after an embarrassing loss to #4 Arizona in Boulder, they might end up on the wrong side of the bubble.

I think losing a player like Dinwiddie on a team like CU is an absolutely legitimate excuse reason to explain a disappointing season. There is literally no shame in that. But if that is the route you’re going to take, then I don’t need to hear Coach Boyle explaining how his team has adapted so well and is poised to take the next step on every Denver sports talk radio show in town. (I bet I heard him on four different shows this week, with each host just gusssssshhhhhing about the state of the Buffs and their coach.)

Anyway, CU played in primetime on ESPN Saturday night. ESPN Gameday was in Boulder for the first time ever. It was a big deal. But, then, well, you see, Arizona, they, kind of, embarrassed, the Buffs. It was 88-61.

I think the statement the Wildcats made was significant. Arizona is a powerhouse. They are a top-two seed. This team from Boulder, they have a long, long way to go. Let’s not forget that Arizona lost one of its best players, Brandon Ashley, a few weeks ago. They overcame the loss of a key component of their offense. They adapted. They are what CU wants to be.

CU isn’t close.

The Buffs finish the regular season with three road games, against Utah, Stanford and California. CU is 2-4 on the road in the Pac-12. The combined home conference record of their opponents is 15-7.

The Buffs needed badly to make a statement against Arizona. Their tournament hopes depended on it. They were embarrassed. They have a long way to go.

(On a separate note: I think they at least stopped with the whole “Roll Tad” thing. That was embarrassing on so many levels. Maybe they’re making progress after all.)

And here’s a crappy video of Aaron OMGordon, because this is like the nastiest college oop I’ve ever seen:

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Stud of the week:

Rob Ford is like my favorite dude ever. Here he is reacting to Canada’s gold medal. (I’m too tired to think of a real candidate here):

Miley Cyrus tweeted a picture to her 10 million followers of her laying in bed at noon with the statement “can’t remember the last time I was still in bed at noon”. The bizarrely awesome account of The Iron Sheik replied with his own tweet. It might be my favorite tweet ever.

This GIF of John Calipari is pretty great:

via @sbnationgif

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAA?

So is this one of Jim Boeheim. It’s not often you see a college coaching legend and class act just go completely berserk.

Comment on any of this stuff below, or email me at mdhahn1@yahoo.com with post ideas, videos or other media I should know about. Subscribe at the top right of this page. Follow me on Twitter @MitchDHahn.

This weekend took a lot out of me so we’re going to jump right in to the weekly departments…

Stud of the week:

TJ Oshie had himself a good week.

via @peteblackburn

He scored four times in a shootout to finish an incredible hockey game that I happened to sleep through. He beat the Russians on their home ice and that’s pretty badass. He captivated America on a slow Saturday morning. He turned the hockey hype for the Olympics up several notches. He deflected praise and said “The American heroes are wearing camo. That’s not me.” All pretty studly. Of course, because this is 2014, his girlfriend instantly became internet famous and that’s the real reason he’s occupying this space this week.

(He also gets points for bottle service, but loses them for drinking Grey Goose. On second thought that might have been her idea and I would also order whatever that woman wanted.)

Douche of the week:

So TJ Oshie seems to be pretty awesome and had a good week . Let us talk about a person who is not awesome and did not have a very good week. When the initial news about Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin broke a few months ago, most people thought Incognito sounded like a meathead and a jerk. I sure did.

Then the sentiment went the other way a little bit. Martin is soft and weird. Incognito is just a football player. Football players are, by rule, a little bit meatheady and jerky, so it’s not his fault.

But ohhh man. Turns out Incognito is like the worst guy ever. The meathead of all meatheads. The jerk of all jerks. An independent investigation produced 148 scathing pages regarding Incognito’s treatment of Martin and others. The whole report is pretty hard to read, but the stuff Incognito said to Martin about Martin’s sister is just disturbing. (The following is some very adult content, but I think it’s important for people to know what the hell Martin was dealing with, and remember this is like 1 percent of what was in that report.)

The evidence supports a finding that Incognito, Jerry and Pouncey repeatedly and persistently made graphic, sexually explicit comments about Martin’s sister, a medical student whom they had never met. Four fairly typical examples of the types of insults made orally, according to Martin, are:

“We are going to run train on your sister. She loves me. I’m going to f— her without a condom and cum in her c—.”

“Hey, Jmart’s sister is in town. Get the plastic sheets ready, she’s a squirter.”

“I’m going to bang the s— out of her and spit on her and treat her like s—.”

“Hear your sister has a wolf-puss. A fat, hairy pussy.”

Although Martin’s core complaints primarily relate to oral statements, crude references to his sister also appeared in a handful of text messages, including one that Incognito sent to Martin and other offensive linemen:

“I flew jmarts sister into Indy. My dick is dry and needs some of her healing squirt juices”

Yikes, huh? This guy is a real Mensa. That said, one of Incognito’s biggest problems was not being able to identify the kind of person that Martin is. I’m sure some other meathead dudes hear that kind of crap and giggle and throw similar language right back at Big Rich. For Martin, all that kind of thing did was depress him destroy his life. Incognito is definitely a meathead and a jerk, but he also definitely lacks people skills. Those are important, too.

Staying on that topic for another moment, this is what Big Rich tweeted two days before the investigation was released.

That didn’t work out too well.

And here’s one Incognito sent the day the investigation was released because it just absolutely cracks me up for some reason. Big Rich Would Like You To Have A Happy Valentines Day : )

While we’re at it, let us take a moment to admire his Twitter avatar/profile picture thing, in which this mouth-breather appears to be quizickly chomping on an orange mouth guard.

@68Incognito

What to watch the next seven days:

I’d quickly like to toot my horn about nailing that Wyoming over San Diego State upset last week. Anyway…

The biggest college basketball game in the state this season is in Boulder on Saturday night when the Buffs host #4 Arizona. I think their tournament hopes rely on winning that game, even though Arizona hasn’t been as impressive after losing Brandon Ashley for the year. I also think Arizona State could win in Boulder tomorrow night, which would severely lessen the impact of Saturday’s game. Either way, it’s a big week for the Buffs, whose remaining schedule isn’t kind. They close with three straight road games and are 2-4 on the road in conference.

USA Hockey will play the Czech Republic at 10 am (Mountain) tomorrow morning in the quarterfinals. Televised on the USA Network. The winner advances to the semis.

The weather postponed the first Duke vs. North Carolina game a couple weeks ago. They are going to try again on Thursday on ESPN.

Neither Colorado State nor Wyoming will be going dancing, but they play Saturday afternoon in Fort Collins. The Border War is usually worth watching.

The Heat and Thunder play on Thursday night. Each team has a good player.

The only thing worth watching with the Nuggets these days is what the hell is going on with Andre Miller. I used to love Dre and thought he carried himself very professionally. But damn, he must really not like Brian Shaw. Hopefully they can trade him for a player who actually, like, plays.

Here are some other cool things…

Curling: Still weird as hell.

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This game-winner from Tyler Ennis (remember that name) to keep Syracuse undefeated on Wednesday night was pretty absurd. College basketball is neat.

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This butt-check from Slovakian goalie Jan Laco is pretty awesome.

via @myregularface

Thanks, internet.

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95-foot putt for a new car.

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Here’s a fairly long and quite interesting read on CSU transfer Chane Behanan for the Rams basketball fans. I hope this kid can stay out of trouble in Fort Collins.

And finally, the East Coast got a lot of snow or something. This dude had some fun with it.

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Happy Tuesday everybody. Thanks for reading. See ya next week.

Comment on any of this stuff below, or email me at mdhahn1@yahoo.com with post ideas, videos or other media I should know about. Subscribe at the top right of this page. Follow me on Twitter @MitchDHahn.

Marcus Smart and Jeff Orr. You want my opinion on this #HOTSPORTZTAKE? Both these dudes are idiots. Orr is Texas Tech basketball’s “superfan.” He also is a complete loser with no life. Smart is former top-5 pick who is letting his little temper cost him millions of dollars. Idiots. …And douches.

We’re in the heart of college basketball season and there’s a slew of good games this week. #15 Michigan travels to #22 Ohio State in a decent B1G matchup tonight at 5 on ESPN.

#5 San Diego State visits Laramie in one of the toughest road tests they’ll face all year tonight. This one is for the night owls, at 9:05 on ESPNU. (I have a hunch Wyoming will pull off the upsest.)

North Caroloina isn’t very good this year, but they host #8 Duke on Wednesday night. That rivalry is usually worth watching. 7 p.m. on ESPN.

#3 Florida at #14 Kentucky in primetime on Saturday night should be legit.

No NHL for a while due to the Olympics. The men start skating in Sochi on Wednesday. The medal games aren’t for a couple weeks, but the US’s first action is 5:30 AM (Mountain) on Thursday vs. Slovakia. Set your alarms and clear your schedules!

The Slam Dunk Competition might actually be decent on Saturday night. They got a crazy idea and are having some players you’ve heard of participating in Paul George, John Wall and Damian Lillard. Don’t get me wrong, I won’t be watching. It’s worth a mention though.

Here are a few more links from the week that are worth your time. (It was a good week for readin!)

Ryan Spillborghson his retirement and career. “I remember sprinting around those bases and screaming for the Giants to “get the F$&@ off our field!”

The New York Times’obituary of the great Ralph Kiner. “Ralph Kiner, baseball’s vastly undersung slugger, who belted more home runs than anyone else over his 10-year career but whose achievements in the batter’s box were obscured by his decades in the broadcast booth, where he was one of the game’s most recognizable personalities, died on Thursday at home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 91.”

Did you know that the snow creates the perfect running conditions?

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“That can happen.”

And finally, this is what happens when 1,000 high shcool choir students stay at the same hotel during the Olympics. This is awesome.

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U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Also: I kind of just realized I didn’t write a whole lot this week. Oh well.

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Happy Tuesday everybody. Thanks for reading. See ya next week.

Comment on any of this stuff below, or email me at mdhahn1@yahoo.com with post ideas, videos or other media I should know about. Subscribe at the top right of this page. Follow me on Twitter @MitchDHahn.

Welcome to the 46th edition of Tuesdays With Mitch, where I don’t have much to contribute to the Super Bowl narrative on a Tuesday afternoon. It’s all over. In Denver, there wasn’t even any quirky or lighthearted aspects of the Super Bowl. We don’t care about the commercials. We don’t care about the halftime show. We don’t care about Joe Namath’s coat. There was just embarrassment and confusion. Dismay and desperation and depression. And dads on smart phones with crying kids.

(via Getty Images)

There were also annoying people at bars. I watched the game downtown at Jackson’s in LoDo. Jackson’s is a great Denver bar and it was packed and the atmosphere was awesome… For the first 12 seconds of the game. Anyway, a guy behind me helped me come to an important realization. This gentleman was screaming various forms of the word “F–K!” at various players during every single play of the game. Every single play. Every. Single. Play.

A handoff to Moreno around the edge on 2nd and 7: “OHH YOU BETTER GET THE F–KING FIRST DOWN!” Russell Wilson scrambles for a first down on 3rd and 6: “WHY THE F–K DON’T WE HAVE A F–KING SPY ON HIM?!” A poor throw from Manning that falls incomplete with no real intended receiving target: “DECKER CAN’T F–KING GET OPEN!” You get the idea. I don’t even mind the cussing. If you’re watching the Broncos play in the Super Bowl in Denver, you are probably going to hear some naughty words. Anyway, this brings me to my next point: Watching important football games with large groups of people you don’t know kind of sucks. I present: The Annoying People Of Large Football Gatherings. (Horray I found a way to write about the Super Bowl without actually writing about that horrible Super Bowl!)

We’ll start with the cute 21-year-old girls in pink Broncos jerseys (probably Decker) that couldn’t tell you what a first down is. These chicks are pretty standard at most sporting events. They take selfies for their Instagram accounts with their little stickers on their cheeks and big smiles. They are unavoidable. Pretty annoying, but not a real big deal. On the plus side, if the game goes south, the males who are actually football fans have something to shift their focus. This is the reason these girls are socially acceptable in the macho manly world of football and beer and big TVs and hot wings. Aaarrghh!

Next we have the I-kind-of-like-the-Broncos-but-really-I-just-want-to-get-wasted guy. “Dude, we gotta do shots for every Broncos’ touchdown!” on Sunday quickly faded into “Alright dude, we gotta do shots every time the Seahawks score or the Broncos turn it over or they show Richard Sherman on the sidelines or a Bronco gets tackled or they go to commercial!” Again, these guys are pretty standard for most sporting events. Comes with the territory. No big deal. (Unless he is trying to start The Wave at Coors Field, which is a classic move for this guy.)

The next two characters are the ones that really irk me. Our third football party staple is the I-know-a-lot-about-the-Broncos-and-football guy. He is very excited to try to exercise his immense knowledge of all things pertaining to the game to anyone who is listening, which is usually nobody.

A fan’s casual observation of “They got Decker back to receive punts again.” is met with “Yeah dude they don’t trust Holliday inside the twenties because he has bad hands Decker has better hands he’s not as explosive but he’s more trustworthy Fox said he wasn’t gunna make any changes in the punt return game on Wednesday I read it online if it’s a crucial moment like if they’re down 5 with a minute left it’ll probably be Trindon yanno because he’s more explosive but Decker is gunna be back there for now.”

Okay, buddy. Thanks.

This dude loves to talk about players on the offensive line. Obviously he knows more about the Broncos than you if he’s naming offensive linemen! “What is Beadles even doing?!” or “Ohh man watch Manny Ramirez on this play are you kidding me?!”

And of course, he knows he should be coaching the team, even though he didn’t quite make JV in high school. “We have to get out of this cover two!” “He’s not even trying to look off the safety over the top.” “Watch the zone read here… WATCH THE ZONE READ.”

Lastly, we have my least favorite person at any large football gathering. The I’m-a-bigger-fan-than-you guy. This is the guy who finds it imperative that everyone knows just how passionate he is about his team. The “F-word” guy I’ve already discussed falls into this category. This guy is a bit of a spinoff from the last, knowledge dispensing, character. He wants you to know how much he knows, but really he just wants you to see HOW MUCH HE CARES. He probably started caring about the Broncos around the time Peyton Manning strolled into town but dammit if he’s not overflowing with passion these days. Look at his orange hoody! He just yelled so loud during that 22-yard kickoff return! He’s wearing Broncos gloves! GLOVES! Did you see how focused he was when Moreno was slow to get up? He was so focused. He must really care. He is like a super fan. I wonder if he has a bunch of money on the game. Man, he must have a bunch of money on the line, because look how INTO IT he is! If something good happens I’m going to look over at him to see his reaction. If something bad happens I’m going to look over at him to see his reaction. Whoa, he just flipped over his basket of chips and some of them hit that girl in the back of the head and he didn’t even apologize! He is one serious fan! I wonder if he knows Pat Bowlen. Maybe I’ll ask him. No. No, I don’t want to interrupt his viewing experience with such a silly question. Yeah, I’m just going to stay out of the way and watch him react to the game. He is scowling at the TV mumbling into his GLOVES! I wonder what he is telling his GLOVES. Look at him just completely ignoring his friends. They’re talking to him but he’s so mad he doesn’t even care! Ohh man he just stepped outside to get some air. He doesn’t even smoke, he just walked out to the patio in the cold because he COULDN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!

We get it man.

This dude is just the worst. Something tells me the guy leaning on the table quietly watching each play with his arms folded cares just as much as you do, he just doesn’t crave the attention.

Moving on…

Stud of the week:

The Seahawks. Going into the Super Bowl I thought the Broncos were the better team. Now, I think if those two teams played ten times, Seattle wins at least nine of them. Percy Harvin is a game changer. That defense is nuts. Russell Wilson does enough. Props to Seattle, the best team in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE! by a wide margin. Those dudes are good.

Douche of the week:

The Broncos. Because what the hell was that?

Tweet of the week:

I’m sure there were lots of hilarious tweets about the Super Bowl. I wasn’t about to read any of them. Sorry.

What to watch the next seven days:

Depending on who you ask, the end of the Super Bowl means it is officially college basketball/NBA/NHL season. I’ve pretty much lost interest in the Nuggets, so they don’t make the cut this week. Not a whole lot of college basketball peaks my interest until Saturday, when just about everybody is in action. (Colorado State hosts UNLV tomorrow night. The Rams have been competitive in just about every Mountain West game; they just can’t close out any good teams.) (Colorado has gone from a top-20 ranking to the bubble. They host Washington State tomorrow night). The Avs continue to win games, so they’re worth your time. They play tonight, Thursday and Saturday on the East Coast.

And we can’t forget the Olympics. The Opening Ceremonies are Friday night on NBC. Keep on eye on NBC, NBC Sports, USA, MSNBC and CNBC for coverage that figures to be pretty much constant.

CSU Basketball fans should get a kick out of Tim Miles helping a fan ask his girlfriend to marry him. You don’t usually see this kind of thing from college basketball coaches, but Tim remains a pretty cool dude.

And finally, if Richard Sherman references don’t pain you too much, you should watch this incredible video from Frank Caliendo. (Don’t worry it’s not really about Sherman).

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I think his Schefter is just hilarious.

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Happy Tuesday everybody. Thanks for reading. This week will be better than the last. See ya next week.

Comment on any of this stuff below, or email me at mdhahn1@yahoo.com with post ideas, videos or other media I should know about. Subscribe at the top right of this page. Follow me on Twitter @MitchDHahn.